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VINDICATION 



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TO THE 



CATHOLIC VOTERS 



OF 



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NH\0. xatx-^ vi«-¥\Kvv^A 



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iJaltitnort: 

PRINTED BY LUCAS & DEAVER 

JVb. 19 South Calvert street 
1828. 



VINDICATION, &c. 



Felloiv-cUizens — After a brief delay, resulting from accidental 
circumstances, we again appear before you. Respect for you dic- 
tated our first address — self-respect commands its vindication: 

We rejoice that this can now be achieved without affecting the 
personal interests, involved in the late election, and that the evasive 
course of those who have undertaken to oppose us, is, by this cir- 
cumstance, limited to yet narrower ground. They cannot now 
fly to the shelter of private character under which they crouched 
before. There is no pretext for them to attempt, again to distract 
your attention from the general question, by assuming the defence 
of a gentleman not assailed by us and towards whom they must 
have known we meant no disrespect. So much, therefore, of their 
multitudinous replies as relates to him, may be dismissed with the 
simple repetition of our opinion already expressed, and in wliich 
the most senshive of his friends can discover nothing injurious, 
that his "habits and health alike unfitted him for the contests" in- 
to which he was urged by the act of the "Adams Convention." 

The oround we assumed, and from which scarce an effort has 
been made to dislodge us, was this, that a respectable Catholic had 
been selected, by the Convention above named, in the hope to in- 
fluence the votes of his fellow-citizens of the same communion. 
We cannot, even after the disclaimer of privity to the artifice, by 
the gentlemen who have signed the replies to us, consider this an 
open question. It has long since been settled by the common 
sense of this community, that discriminating faculty, which, with 
native tact, decides on propositions not easily subjected to the 
test of direct evidence. It was settled by the familiar admissions 
of candid men who supported him, and by the loudly boastful an- 
ticipations of the party itself Even "Well wisher," though behind 
a mask, did not venture to contradict our statement; though he la- 
boured, to fritter away the force of his extorted admission, by the 
qualifying phrase "for the sake of the argument." Nay! if the 
candidate himself have not been misrepresented (for we did not 



4 

hear him) even lic admitted it, indirectly indeed, but not the less 
conclusively, when he acknowledged, from the hustings at the 
Lexington market, that nothing but "the cause"" could have 
brought him forward. And yet further: if it could, by any possi- 
bility, be deemed a derogation from his merit, to suppose that 
there existed men, in the Adams party, as capable as himself, and 
more experienced in politics, but without his peculiar influence, 
we might have sustained our own inferences by those of the Edi- 
tor of the Patriot, who, four years ago, (it is remembered) held 
similar language, when Mr. Tiernan was announced as the Craw- 
ford elector, before transferring his preferences to General Jack- 
son. But it is wasting time to dwell on general presumptions. 
We are prepared to show that a member of the Adams Convention 
did actually apply to a Catholic gentleman, whose politics he 
mistook, for information touching the relative tveigkt^ in the Ca- 
tholic congregation^ of Mr. Tiernan and another gentleman of the 
same party! And were all this otherwise; were the members of 
that Convention able and willing to come forward, with an express 
disavowal of the motives universally imputed to them, we should 
still stand appro : ed in our views of the nomination by the use to 
ivhich it ivas applied, hij individuals of their party. The res- 
pondents to our address avow themselves "-ignorant" of such un- 
worthy appeals to religious prejudice. It would have been more 
consistent with their disbelief of the fact, had they challenged us 
to the proof of what we stated, viz: that we could adduce the 
names of "more than one, to whom appeals had been made, on 
that very ground." The pledge was unequivocally given and 
would have been promptly redeemed. Their utter silence about 
it; and their silence also, in relation to "the republication, ivith the 
preface for the Catholics,'''' of Mr. Gaston's address, joined to the 
evidence, of an appeal to Catholic favour, derived from their own 
Hagerstown letter, (published long before our address) altogetlicr 
constitute but a frail support to their languid disclaimer; and are 
paralleled, for inconsistency with their professions, only by 
their eager recurrence to the miserable trash of "King John," and 
ihc'iY faint echo to the appeal of the Adams convention, "you are 
recommended to withold your suflVages from a member of your 
own communion.'''' 

Thus were we justified in taking our stand, as individuals, 
against an appeal ungenerously addressed to the Catholics of 
Baltimore. 

With how much regard to truth, we executed our task, will be 
considered hereafter. For the present it is necessary to animadvert 
upon the course of our antagonists. And here, we would remind 
them that their predicament is of their own seeking. We struck 
not at them. Not an individual was attacked by us but the arch 
slanderer of our church. They volunteered in liis defence; and 
if, in the desperate attcmi)t, they have ventured to assail our per- 



sonal crediblity, they must not complain should the blow recoil 
upon themselves. 

We propose to notice, in the order of topics, an address signed 
by fifteen gentlemen, one signed by seventeen gentlemen, and the 
letter of ''Well wisher." 

And first, we enter our protest against the principle of the defence 
set up for Mr. Adams by the seventeen signers, at the expense of 
the constitutional privileges and dignity of our Church. 

It is argued, that ive must not take offence at the numberless 
insults private and official which the President has heaped on us, 
because, say they, (page 2d) "what history, what romance or nov- 
el, what play written in the English language represents us in any 
other light?" '•'•Where is the Protestant^ in this or any other coun- 
try, who does not think or speak or write of our faith and worship 
in any other way.''" Now, passing the perhaps unintentional sub- 
stitution of "faith and worship" for the persons of defenceless 
women.) Silesian priests, Jesuits. &c., ive deny the facts asserted in 
their apologetic questions. Our acquaintaHce with christians of 
other denominations is extensive. We mingle with thousands in 
our daily avocations and social enjoyments. Some of us were 
educated as protestants^ and have enjoyed a more unequivocal ex- 
perience. And tve all are bold to say, that our opponents cannot 
name, throughout the United States, one protestant gentleman, in 
five hundred, who would disgrace his name, by associating it with 
the obscene jests and insolent misrepresentations of Mr. Adams. 
The principles of decency and good manners are too widely dis- 
seminated; were those of Christian Charity and Political Tole- 
rance inadequate to restrain such outrages, even from those who 
most widely and zealously differ from us. 

But, were the fact as these gentlemen would have us think it, in 
their rash effort to blacken all their Christian brethren of other pur- 
suasions, to the hue of their idol's bigotry, we should regard the pre- 
sent call for our rebuke by so much the more imperious. The Ca- 
tholics, in this country, occupy an equal stand with other Christians, 
on the platform of the Constitution. In England, whence our 
opponents borrow so large a portion of their justification of Mr. 
Adams, Catholics are treated as a degraded caste. So far, then, from 
admitting the excuse derived from our degradation there, a degra- 
dation which, our adversaries assert, has operated the pollution of 
the entire literature of the language, we feel it a duty proportion- 
ed to our rights, as brothers of the political household, to resist 
such encroachments on our privileges here; and the more elevated 
the source of injury, the more resolute should be our opposition! 

The pathetic deprecation of such resistance, in the 3d page of 
the answer by fifteen, we meet with the same reply; — unless our 
respondents can prove that he, who privately avenges a private 
wrong, is in equal right with communities, which openly repel 
those who would openly oppress and vilify them. Indeed, we 



6 

have yet to learn that a Christian would violate his duty, by ar- 
raigning a slanderer at the tribunals of justice, and exposing his 
calumnies to refutation and chastisement. We might, with reason, 
have originated such an appeal against Mr. Adams. His insults to 
us and our religion, when Secretary of State and President, might 
alone have been met, as infringementsof our constitutional privileges, 
and fearful indications of the temper of his measures towards us, 
should circumstances subject us to his will. But we went not so 
far. We were first invoked, through our brother Catholic, by our 
family name, to support Mr. Adams. We replied, '•'■let Mr. Adams 
speak to us as Catholics, for himself" — And we farther recom- 
mend to him, when next he speaks of Catholics, and to his Ca- 
tholic partisans, when they again invoke to his support the entire 
literature of Protestant Christendom, to give a passing thought to 
the following eloquent passages, from the pens of no feeble cham- 
pions of the Protestant Churches. 

"I shall always acknowledge with gratitude, that chiefly to 
the literary as well as religious zeal of our papal ancestors, 
the English Universities are indebted for "great and goodly 
cities which we builded not, for vineyards and olive trees 
which we planted not," for statutes and ordinances, which 
after the lapse of centuries, and after a succession of migh- 
ty changes, Ijoth in private and public life, have not ceased to be 
profitable to learning, morals and piety; and for means most abun 
dant and eflicacious to guide, assist and encourage our rising youth, 
in every pursuit which adorns and invigorates the human mind. — 
"When we have eaten and are full, let us beware lest we forget" 
the wisdom, munificence, and generosity of those founders who 
"brought us forth out of the land of Egyptian darkness, and from 
the house of intellectual bondage." — [Dr. Parr.) 

"Politically too, the papacy was the Saviour of Europe; for in 
all human probability, the west like the east, must have been over- 
run by Mahommedanism, and sunk in irremediable degradation, 
through the pernicious institutions which have every where accom- 
panied it, if, in that great crisis of the world, the Roman Church 
had not roused the nations to a united and prodigious effort commen- 
surate with the danger. — (Sout!icy''s '■^Bnok of the Church.'''') 

"[n the middle ages," says Mons. Ancillon,a Protestant writer of 
celebrity, "when there existed" (comparatively) "no social order, 
the papacy alone, perhaps, saved Einope from entire barbarism; it 
created a commuication between the most distant nations; it was 
a common centre — a rallying point for isolated states. It was a 
supreme tribunal, raised in the midst of universal anarchy, the de- 
crees of which were sometimes as respectable as they were respec- 
ted. It prevented and checked the despotism of the Emperors, 
supplied the want of a political balance, and diminished the de- 
fects of the feudal government." We should compile a book were 
we to prosecute this subject much further. 



The point of the defence to which we next advert, (and in sorrow 
do we note the length to wliich party prejudice will carry men) we se- 
lect from the 4th page of the answer by fifteen — After quoting at 
length certain parts of the fourth of July oration denounced by 
us, and we shall soon shew that we denounced it correctly, they 
proceed, -'Is there a sentence or phrase in these eloquent extracts 
which can be construed by any liberal and intelligent reader, into 
an outrageous and unprovoked attack on Catholic feelings, or a 
desire to stigmatize the religion of Coecilius Calvert, Charles Car- 
roll and O'Connel? It is an impeachment of those enormities and 
encroachments on the pure simplicity and Christian Holiness of 
the Church, which exposed some of its professors, about the mid- 
dle of the 1 7th century, to the severe reproof of the celebrated 
Pascal, /wj/Jse/y a Catholic and a Priest; and which have been 
so deservedly rebuked by the pious and informed Catholics of all 
subsequent times, as tending to bring into disrepute a faith which 
breathes purity and holiness and self-denial, and to hold up its fol- 
lowers as apostates in practice, although orthodox in profession. 
It is that spirit of usurpation, which led to the desolation of the 
fairest portions of Europe and Asia, and the destruction of mil- 
lions of the human race — that spirit which is chastised and purifi- 
ed into the meeker and more Christian principle which regulates 
the discipline and practice of the Church in our day." 

Now to this we reply, first, for the information of all concerned, 
that PASCAL was neither PRIEST nor CATHOLIC! and we 
refer our readers to any priest in this city, for confirmation of both 
assertions. 

Pascal was a Jansenist, separated with that sect, from the 
Catholic Church, and one of their ablest champions in their war 
against the Jesuists. The following extracts, translated from the 
x\bbe de Feller's "Dictionaire Historique," article "Blaise Pascal," 
will sufl[iciently illustrate the credibility of those who invoke his 
testimony to support the calumnies of Mr. Adams. 

The original work, from which we borrow, may be consulted in 
the libraries at the Catholic Seminary in this city. 

After mentioning the retreat of Pascal to the head quarters of 
the Jansenists, at "Port-Royal-des-Champs," the writer (Feller ) pro- 
ceeds — "The solitaries who inhabited this desert, were then in the 
ardour of their disputes with the Jesuits. They sought all ways 
to render these fathers odious; Pascal did more, in the eyes of the 
French; he turned them into ridicule. His eighteen "Provincial let- 
ters," appeared all in quarto, one after the other, from the month of 
January 1656, to the month of March in the following year. They 
are a medley of delicate pleasantry and violent satire. * * * The 
"Provincial letters" were struck with the lightnings of Ecclesiasti- 
cal Authority, and of the civil power. The Pope, the Council of 
State, the Parliament, the Bishops, condemned them as a defama- 
tory libel. The Parliament of Aix had them burned by the hang- 



8 

man, on the 9th of February, 1667. * * * 'Do you think' says 
<, Racine, that "the Provincial letters'" are any thing else but come- 

dies? The author has chosen his personages in the Convents, and 
in the Sorbonne. He introduces upon the scene, sometimes Jaco- 

»/; bins, sometimes doctors, and always the Jesuits," &.c. From the 

Ir; testimony of Racine, sustained by that of the infidel Voltaire him- 

gelf, who acknowledges, in his "•age of Louis XIV." that "the 
whole book rests on falsehood;" "that Pascal had endeavoured, in 

-^ these letters, to prove that the Jesuits had formed a design to cor- 

rupt the human race, a design which no society has ever had, nor 
ever can have," the Abbe (Feller) passes, among other things, 
, to remark upon the melancholy alienation of mind, which befel 

\, Pascal, in his latter days, in tliese mild but emphatic terms — 

"His adversaries have availed themselves too much of this derang- 

* ment of his organization, to diminish the great estimation which 
<| his party were forced to ascribe to one of their most zealous adepts. 
I Far from imitating a proceeding which seems to lack of generosi- 
"■^ ty, we will content ourselves, according to the example of St. Je- 
j. rome, with regretting that a man so talented and so pious, at least 

according to the strongest appearances, should not have been une- 
quivocally attached to the great tree of the Church. / say nothing 
more than that the man was not of the Church." The autho- 
<7 rity of Feller needs no vindication with any well informed Catho- 

* lie. 

So much for the witness. But the doctrine he is cited to sus- 
(7 tain, is rather less Catholic than Pascal. Have these gentlemen, 

,^ who, to cover their political leader, represent their Church the 

slave of "enormities and encroachments," of "a spirit of usurpa- 
tion which led to the destruction of millions of the human race 
> &.C." forgotten their daily profession of faith in "One holy Catho- 

' lie and Apostolic Church.''" Have they forgotten that her holi- 

ness UNSUSCEPTIBLE OF STAIN is One of the marks by which the 
Universal Church is known? and that consequently the "gates of 
Hell" could "not prevail against her" in the seventeenth century, 
nor before nor since? Their headlong zeal for the defamer betrays 
them into error concerning the Institution defamed. They sup- 
^ pose an ideal Church, verifying in theory alone her master's pro- 

i mise of perpetuity, while her whole visible frame is corrupt; and 

\ content their Catholicity with asserting her uninterrupted "Ortho- 

doxy in profession" while stigmatizing her with "Afostacy in 
Practice." Let them not think to cover their rashness, by the 
attempt to confuse, what, to save Mr. Adams, they are forced to say 
of their Church., into a censure only of "some of its members." 
Their own language has failed under the desperate service. They 
^ speak of "a meeker and more Christian principle which regulates 

the dicipline and practice of the Church in our day.,'''' what is this 
but saying, that a less Christian spirit did regulate her dicipline 
and practice formerly? The charge, in eflect, is as direct against 



9 

THE Catholic Church as we shall presently prove that of Mr. 
Adams to have been; and we leave it for our opponents to settle 
it with their consciences, before their next Easter Communion — 
And here perhaps it may not be amiss to notice a calumnious in- 
terrogatory by "well wisher." He asks, (page 5) "was not Galileo 
compelled to recant his doctrine that the earth and not the sun 
moved round.'" We tell liira no, nor Copernicus the Priest before 
him! on the contrary, both were caressed and rewarded for their 
intellectual achievements by the highest dignitaries of the Catho- 
lic Church. Galileo's first visit to Rome in 1611 was marked by 
the admiration and honours awarded to his genius by the Pontifi- 
cal Court — At his second visit in 1615 he experienced no dimuni- 
tion of similar demonstrations of respect and esteem. But the zeal 
of authorship betrayed him into indiscretion. He insisted that the 
Pope should declare the system of Copernicus founded on the Bible. 
Paul V. wearied by frequent memorials to this effect, referred the 
matter to a congregation; who simply decided that the Bible did 
not teach the doctrine of the earths motion leaving the astronomi- 
cal dogma uncontroverted, and barely prohibiting Galileo from ap- 
pealing to sacred writ, which was designed for other ends, for con- 
tirmation of his philosophical speculations. Galileo acquiesced in 
the decree, regarded it as no ways injurious to himself, or his 
system, and departed on the most gracious terms with the Pope. 
For fifteen years he continued to promulgate his pliilosophical 
doctrines, and respect the prohibition touching appeals to the scrip- 
ture; whose authority the Cardinals had felt it their duty to pro- 
tect against the evil consequences of its being pressed into the ser- 
vice of scientific disputants, and identified with theories of exter- 
nal nature which might be subsequently disproved. In 1632, how- 
ever, he reproduced the memoirs of 1616 — was attacked and de- 
dicated his reply to Pope Urban VIH. In 16.33 he returned 
again to Rome; was received with extraordinary respect and at- 
tention; not a word was said about prisons or dungeons; he was 
permitted to remain all the time at the palace of the Tuscan Am- 
bassador, except during eighteen days that he was lodged in the 
apartments of the fiscal of the Holy Office, with permission to ride 
out daily. He was afterwards sent back to the Tuscan Ambassa- 
dor's palace. No question was made in the cause of the grounds 
of his system — the point was its pretended conformity with the 
Bible. The sentence conformed to the previous one. Galileo con- 
ceded the point in controversy, and was at liberty. These notes 
are gathered from a treatise published in this city some years since 
and ascribed to the Rev. Mr. Brute, who quotes Guichardin 
the Marquis de Nicholini, and the letters of Galileo himself We 
should hardly have approached so near to what savours of Religi- 
ous controversy, had not the indiscretion of our Catholic opponents 
■already engaged us in the vindication of their own Church. 



10 

From the abstract principles of the defence, we turn to some 
of its specific details;_and here we cannot repress the expression 
of om surprise at the charge of "garbling" and "mutilating' 
Mr Adams' language which has been urged against us. 1 his, 
if it mean any thincr, implies that we have misrepresented Ins sen- 
timents: and we ffankly own it was the last ive expected to meet. 
It is answered best by a republication of the language itseli. We 
becrin with the fourth of July oration, including within brackets 
such parts as we originally deemed, and still think, superfluous to 

our subject. , , , • , , i u *« 

The reader will observe the speakers' object to have been, to 
trace the rise and progress of civil and religious liberty, through- 
out the world. With the former branch of his subject, we had 
nothing to do; and we trust we know enough ol the hifter to 
have left him unmolested to its discussion, had his notions been 
advanced with common decency. But we meant to shew, ^i'^tllout 
res:ard to whatever political face he chose to ivear that a«y, that he 
did speak of the religion we are proud to profess, with unprovok- 
ed mali^nitii and gratuitous contempt. We confined our extracts, 
evclusii^ely, to those which related to it; and to have mingled with 
them what appertained to a totally different subject would have 
argued as little sino/eness of understanding, on our part, as it does 
of singleness of motive, on that of our respondents. 

[•'Governed themselves by a race of kings, whose title to sover- 
eicrntv had oricrinally been founded in conquest spell-bound Jor a 
succession of Iges iinder] that portentous system of despo- 
tism AND OF SUPERSTITION WHICH IN THE NAME OF THE MEEK 
AND HUMBLE JeSUS HAD BEEN SPREAD OVER THE ChRISTI "N 

WORLD, [the history of this nation had, for a period of seven hun- 
dred years, from the days of the conquest till our own, exhibited a 
conflict almost continual, between the oppressions of power and 
the claims of right] In the theories of the Crown and the Mitre 
man had no rights. mUher the body nor the soul oJ the mdu 
mdual u'as Ms own. From the impenetrable gloom of this intel- 
lectual DARKNESS, and the deep degradation of this servitude, 
the British nation had partially emerged. [The martyrs of religious 
freedom had consumed to ashes at the stake: the champions ot 
temporal liberty had bowed their heads upon the scaftold; and the 
spirits of manv a bloody day had left their earthly vesture upon 
the field of battle, and soared to plead the cause of Liberty be- 
fore the throne of heaven. The people of Britain, through 
lona acres of civil war, had extorted from their tyrants not acknow- 
led^nnmts, but grants, of right. Witli this concession they had 
been content to stop in the progress of human improvement. 
They received their freedom as a donation from their sovereigns; 
they appealed for their privileges to a sign manual and a seal; they 
lield their title to liberty, like their title to lands, from the bounty 



II 

of a man; and in their moral and political chronology, the great 
charter of Runny Mead was the beginning of the world. 

"From the earliest ages of their recorded history, the inhabitants 
of the British Islands have been distinguished for their intelligence 
and their spirit.] How much of these two qualities, the foun- 
tains of all amelioration in the condition of men, was stifled by 
these two principles of subserviencij to ecclesiastical usurpation, 
[and of holding rights as the donation of kings,] this is not the 
occasion to inquire. 

"Of their tendency to palsy the vigor and enervate the faculties 
of man, all philosophical reasoning, and all actual experience, 
concur in testimony. 

["These principles, however, were not peculiar to the people of 
Britain.] They ivere the delusions of all Europe, still the most 
enlightenened and most improvable portion of the earth. [The 
temporal chain was riveted upon the people of Britain by the con- 
quest.] Their spiritual fetters ivere forged by subtlety 
icorking upon superstition. [Baneful as the effect of these 
principles was, they could not for ever extinguish the light of rea- 
son in the human mind. The discovery of the Mariner's Com- 
pass was soon followed by the extension of intercourse between 
nations the most distant, and which, without that light beaming 
in darkness to guide the path of man over the boundless waste of 
waters, could never have been known to each other. The inven- 
tion of Printing, and the composition of gunpowder, which revo- 
lutionized at once the art and science of war, and the relations of 
peace; the revelation of India to Vasco de Gama; and the dis- 
closure to Columbus of the American hemisphere, all resulted from 
the incompressible energies of the human intellect,] bound and 
crippled as it was by the double cords of ecclesiastical imposture 
[and political oppression. To these powerful agents in the pro- 
gressive improvement of our species, Britain can lay no claim. — 
For them the children of men are indebted to Italy, to Germany, 
to Portugal, and to Spain. All these improvements, however, con- 
sisted in successful researches into the properties and modifications 
of external nature. The religious reformation was an im- 
provement in the science of mind; an improvement in the inter- 
course of man with his Creator, and in his acquaintance with him- 
self It was an advance in the knoivledge of his duties and his 
rights. It was a step in the progress of man in comparison with 
which the Magnet and Gunpowder, the wonders of either India; 
nay, the Printing Press itself, were but the paces of a pigmy to the 
stride of a giant. If to this step of human advancement Germany 
likewise lays claim in the person of Martin Luther, or in the ear- 
lier but ineffectual martyrdom of John Huss, England may point 
to her Wicliffe as a yet more primitive vindicator of the same 
righteous cause, and may insist on the glory of having contributed 
lier share to the improvement of the moral condition of man.] 



<i'. 



12 

"The corruptions and usurpations of the Church ivere tlte 
immediate objects of these reformkrs; but, at the foundation of 
all their exertions, there was a single, plain, and almost self evi- 
dent principle — that man has a right to the exercise of his own 
reason. It was this princii)le which the sophistry and rapacity 
of the Church had obscured and obliterated, and ivhich the intes- 
tine divisions of the same Church itself first restored. The 
triumph of reason was the result of inq-jiry and discussion. [Cen- 
turies of desolating wars have succeeded, and oceans of human 
blood have flowed for the final establishment of this principle; but 
jt was from the darkness of the Cloister that the first spark was emit- 
"h ted, and from the arches of an Ifniversity that it first kindled into 

day. From the discussion of religious rights and duties, the tran- 
i sition to that of the political and ri' il relations of men witi: one 

^ another, was natural and unavoidable; in both, the reformers were 

M met by the weapons of temporal power.] Jit the same glance of' 

% reason., the tiara would have fallen from the brow of priesthood, 

'* ["and the despotic sceptre would h'lve departed from the hand of 

royalty,] but for the sword by which they were protected — that 
'^. sword which, like the flaming sword of the Cherubim, turned every 

way to debar access to the tree of life." 

Let any man, who understands English, now venture to deny, 
that by '■Hhat portentous system 0/ despotism and superstition 
which in the name of the meek and humble Jesus had, been spread 
over the Christian world,'''' was meant the Catholic Religion. 

Our opponents themselves, or those who compiled the answer 
by fifteen, must have understood it so; else why (when professing 
to give "the extracts which were made the ground work" of our 
accusation) omit the entire paragraph about the "Religious Refor- 
mation," Luther, Huss, and Wicklifife.^ That paragraph, (omitted 
b]i them, omitted too by "Well wisher" while he scrupled not to 
say "here is the whole,") nailed the insulting libel upon the door 
of our Sanctuary! For what was "the Religious Reformation" 
J, ' but a direct disavowal of, and protest against the doctrines and 

authority of the Catholic Church? Against what "corruptions and 
\, usurpations" did Luther and the other reformers testify, but those 

^i which they ascribed to the Catholic Church? We have, for popular 

I"' eflect,been charged with subservience to the craft of "some youno- 

"y lawyer." Our adversaries are exempt, at least, from this; for it re- 

^ quires not a second reading to show that their attempt to distort 

,.;. the words in question into an innocent censure of "the unholy alli- 

ances between Kings and Clergy, in wliat are called Established 
Churches," was the production of no lawyer. This will appear 
^: more clearly from the very next i)aragraph of the oration to that 

> which we have quoted already. 

"The double contest against the oppressors of the Church and 
,^: State was too api)a!Iing for the vigor, or too comprehensive for 

the faculties of the reformers of the European Continent. In 



18 

Britain alone was it undertaken, and in Britain but partially suc- 
ceeded. 

"It was in the midst of that fermentation of the human intellect 
which brought right and power in direct and deadly conflict with 
each other, that the rival crowns of the two portions of the 
British Island, were united on the same head. It was then that, 
released from the manacles of ecclesiastical domination, the 
minds of men began to investigate the foundations of civil go- 
vernment." 

It is essential to a complete understanding of the foregoing re- 
marks, to advert to the historical fact, that though the Protestant 
Reformation, which commenced with Luther, spread rapidly over 
a large portion of the Continent, the political constitutions of Eu- 
rope, underwent few radical changes till the explosion of the 
French Revolution. While in England, on the other hand, the 
stern race of Tudor, under whom the religions changes were con- 
summated, had scarcely ceased to reign, when thepolitical disputes 
began which terminated in the revolution of 1688, and ihe esta- 
blishment of the government on a more popular basis. When Mr. 
Adams, therefore, speaks of a "double contest against the oppres- 
sors of the Church and State," "undertaken in Britain alone," he 
must be understood to refer to the tivo revolutions in that country; 
one in politics, the other in religion. And it is for the unsea- 
sonable and indecorous terms in which he descants upon the lat- 
ter, that w'e hold him responsible. His admirers, indeed, are but 
ill aware of the stigma they attach to his boasted literary repu- 
tation, when they strain their criticism to prove him railing, in these 
offensive paragraphs, only against "Established Churt^hes." For, 
had that been his design, how strangely ignorant or forgetful 
must he have been, of the existence of "an Established Church," 
in England, from the days of Edward VI. to the present hour! 
Since the existence of that Church would have been utterly 
inconsistent with his assertion that, at the time when "the rival 
crowns" of Encjland and Scotland were united on the head of 
James I. "the minds of men" were "released from the manacles 
of ecclesiastical domination.'''' Our adversaries may choose from 
the dilemma. If Mr. Adams intended by "the manacles of eccle- 
siastical domination" nothing more nor less than Established 
Churches, he proved himself ignorant of the notorious fact that 
"an Established Church" exists in England, and did exist at the 
time of which he wrote. If he meant not Established Churches, 
he pointed at the subverted authority of the Catholic Church. 

From the wanton contumely of this unlucky oration, we passed 
in our address, to the indecent libels and senseless ridicule of the 
"Silesian letters." And we did it, as ice intimated, for the very 
reasons urged by his advocates, in his defence — because "they were 
the unstudied effusions of his mind" — because "they were address- 
ed, in the unreservedness of fraternal affection and confidence, to a 



14 

brotlier." We thought, and we still think, that these private ex:- 
pressions afford a surer indication of the secret ivorkins;s of the 
soul, than a thousand set speeches, official appointments, or pub- 
lic displays of munificence. We quoted thcni, as we noiv refer to 
them, to prove how deeply the very fountains of his existence are 
tinged with the bitterness of sectarian hatred; to set forth his sen- 
timents in youth, as a commentary on his language in age. But, 
when we spoke of youth, we meant not the boyhood of the head or 
the heart. We spoke of the full age of vigour in both; ere the 
lapse of thirty after years had chilled the one to more rigid preju- 
dice, and disciplined the other to habitual craft. We spoke of a 
man ivho had been appointed to two foreign missions, and was in 
actual attendance on a third — of a married man, the presence of 
whose wife, if nothing else, ought to have chastened his feelings to 
something less filthily indecent than his foul aspersions of the nuns 
of Schweidnitz and Sprotau. But, say our antagonists, these letters 
were written "without the remotest intention or suspicion of their 
being laid before the public." How stands the fact? They were 
written, as appears from the dates annexed, at intervals from the 
20th of July, 1800, to the 17th of March, 1301; and were first 
published, weekly, from the 3d of January, 1801, in the Port Fo- 
lio. It is true the tour through Silesia was achieved in rather 
more than two months; but many of the most slanderous para- 
graphs were subsequently written from Berlin. Now it seems 
hardly consistent with the courtesy and confidence which usually 
regulate family correspondence, that without the knowledge of the 
Avriter, and his assent first obtained, these letters should have been 
published, nearly six months after the date of the first, and contin- 
ued, in weekly succession, for ten months therefrom: and it is 
still less improbable, that, had the publication been disagreeable to 
him, they would have been republished with his name annexed. 

We readily believe that the author did not, at the time, foresee 
the illustration, in his own instance, of the Scriptural imprecation: 
*»0h that mine enemy had written a book!" We ascribe his whole 
calamity to that silly fondness for seeing himself in print which 
has borne him through the — 

"Many a foolscap page, he in his time hath written." 
The question is, however, what did he write and publish? Have 
our opponents ventured to deny, that he did most grossly libel two 
societies of defenceless women whom he never saw, and who had 
devoted themselves to the service of God in the calm seclusion of 
their cloisters? Have they denied that he did insinuate those holy 
retreats to be the secret haunts of beastly debauchery? We 
will not stain our page again, but refer you to his own coords, and 
repeat our challenge to him, or any who uphold him, to pub- 
lish a like statement concerning any similar association of Catho- 
lic ladies in the District of Columbia, or this State. 



15 

It is not always, however, that the thoughts of Mr. Adams stand 
forth like his libels of the Nuns, in such bold relief; undivested of 
the cumbrous vil of words, the tearing off of which, exposes us to 
the charge of '^mangling" and "garbling," when our only object 
is to spare the printer's and the reader's trouble. Our adversaries, 
therefore, will possibly grumble, that ive gave not all he said, con- 
cerning St. Hedwige; though we quoted enough to the point we had 
in view, the exposure of his statement of "the grounds of canon- 
ization" in the Catholic Church. We will add, tlierefore, from his 
bright side of her picture, that you may judge of his inducements 
to ridicule and misrepresent one, whom a numerous portion of his 
fellow-citizens believe to have enjoyed the peculiar favour of our 
Creator; one of whom you may read, in her life by Alban Butler, 
(October 17,) that "she acquitted herself of all her respective du- 
ties, towards God, ht^r husband, her children and her family — that 
though she gave her whole dower towards the foundation of the 
great Monastery of Cistercian Nuns, at Trebnitz, she appointed bu.t 
one-tenth of the revenue to the support of professed Nuns, and al- 
lotted the remainder to nine hundred young ladies of reduced fa- 
milies, who were to be educated in piety, and afterwards provided 
with competent portions to marry advantageously in the world — 
that she exhausted her revenues in relieving the necessitous, and 
that though "with going to churches barefoot, sometimes over ice 
and snow, her feet were often blistered, and left the ground stained 
with traces of her blood," this penitential act, which so roused the 
"American Minister's" sarcastic spleen, was not ostentatiously 
displayed, but that "she carried shoes under her arms, to put on if 
she met any one." Mr. Adams says, (letter 1 3th) that "according 
to the tattling old servant," "she was that famous example of con- 
jugal affection of whom all the world has heard; who, upon the 
Castle's being taken, after a long siege, obtained leave of the ene- 
my's general to carry off her most precious effects; and, under that 
denomination, took upon her back, to the astonishment of both ar- 
mies and all posterity, her husband." Surely, were there ever a re- 
commendation of the dead to the indulgent regard o( a. husband and 
a gentleman, it might be found in this simple tradition! 

It was our intention,when we commenced this rejoinder, to have pub- 
lished anew every extract from the writings of Mr. Adams, from which 
we had rejected the superfluous matter, giving credit for the omission 
by asterics; but our limits have unavoidably been so far extended 
already, that we have changed our plan to a republication of those 
passages only, which we have been specifically charged with "garb- 
ling." In the mean time we request our readers to compare the 
quotations in our "address," one by one, with the original letters, 
&.C. and we defy our respondents to prove a single fraud upon us. 
Be it noted, by the way, that they shrunk from the charge that 
Mr. Adams did assign, in his thirtieth letter, "Superstition," ex~ 
tessive veneration for the J^fon/fs," and ^'•liberality to the Church.-^ 



16 

as '■Hhe grounds'''' upon which St. Hedwige was raised to the Senate 
of the Roman Catholic Mvthology." And we charge them 
also, with giving a cautious go by to his no less insuhing and slan- 
derous insinuation, in his 20th letter, that Catholics believe their 
sins forgiven on their kissing a relic. 

An imputation of dishonesty has been predicated upon our ex- 
tracts from the!23d letter; and we notice it, because it perchance 
has met the eye of respectable men. We give them entire, therefore- 
that you m'v judge of our "credibility." "/n order to increase the 
solemnilij and duration of i\\e processions^ within the Church itself, 
and all around the village of Almendorf, are little Chapels containing 
representations of the life and sutferings of Christ; at each of which 
the processions stop to kneel, and pray, and kiss the holy relics 
still exposed at each of these stations. The most remarkable 
of these relics, is a wisp of the straw upon which the infant Jesus 
lay in the stable, immediately after his birth. It is under a large 
iron plate with a small square hole in the centre, through which 
a half an inch length of the straw may be seen. The iron plate 
is almost worn and rusted away with the kisses of the pious blind 
people, who believe in its authenticity. I was attended by one of 
the clerical persons who officiate in the Church, but he teas so 
ashamed of his relics, that I perceived it gave him pjain lohen I 
read the iyiscrip linns round them, purjiorting what they are, and 
ceased indulging my curiosity in this respect. He repeated, seve- 
ral times, that the authenticity of the relics was extremely ques- 
tionable; and in particular, declared his own conviction, that a 
wisp of straw could not be kept in preservation, from the time of 
Chrisfs birth, until the present." 

It is said, that we were bound to retail the account given by this 
"devout man," Mr. Adams, of his '-carefully avoiding to wound 
the feelings of those who differ from hiin in creed." This we de- 
ny. The question of his delicate forbearance towards Catholics 
we had settled elsewhere — Our charge never extended to his im- 
mediate personal intercourse with them. We can hardly believe, 
that even in the hey-day of his epistolary sportiveness, he would 
have insulted a Nun with his loathsome jests, had he encountered 
one at the grate, or, in the case of one not cloistered, (like our 
•■'Sisters of Charity") at the bedside of a dying man. Our ob- 
ject was to expose as the libeller of our Church, the man whom 
we were invited, as Catholics, to sustain in office. The passage 
in question is an unequivocal attempt to ridicule the Catholics, and 
expose them to scorn for their respect towards objects which, have 
been honored by their connection with the "living temples of God;'* 
and, to enforce tlie irony, a "clerical person" is introduced, ac- 
knowledging an imposture practised upon the ignorant by the go- 
vernors of his particular Church. We will, for argument, admit 
that there was hero no "traveller's story;" that a Catholic clergy- 



17 

man did volunteer the singular proposition, that a wisp of straw, 
whicli had been consecrated as the couch of his incarnate God, 
could not endure 1800 years. We will suppose there was no lurk- 
ing sneer in the precision of voice, or demure conduct of the eye 
of the "devout" visitor, which inflicted "the pain" we read of — 
Was there no insult levelled at the Catholic community — no in- 
tention to disparage them or their religion, in the estimation of 
their Protestant brethren, in the jmblished narrative we quoted 
from? Compare it with our extracts from letters 20th and 25th, 
and if the result be not an accordance with our understanding of 
it, the cause must exist in some impediment of the intellect or the 
will. If our interpretation of it be admitted as correct, we Jilted 
the measure of our obligation, by setting forth the ivhole of the li~ 
bellous matter. 

In the prosecution of our review, we observe no vindication or 
disavowal by our opponents of the Jidanis legend, concerning 
Ariscislaus, the ducal convert alledged by him to have led the 
way in Christianising Silesia. They have been equally prudent in 
relation to his charge, in the 41st letter, that "from the period of 
the foundation" (of the Silesian bishopric, A.D. 966,) "for more 
than four centuries, the opinion was almost universally prevalent 
here, as in the rest of Europe, that the compendium of all Imman 
virtue, and the atonement of all human vice, consisted in founding, 
building, and endowing Churches, Cloisters, and other religious 
houses." 

But, when we accused him of inculcating the essential intole- 
rance of Catholics, in his 35th letter, we perceive that we fell into 
our trade of "clipping and mangling," judge ye how dishonestly! 

"One century had elapsed since the commencement of Luther's 
reformation, and in the course of that time the princes and peo- 
ple of Germany, had become divided into two parties, of nearly 
equal strength; one adheringSto popery, and the other adopting the 
Protestant doctrines. The house of Austria, (in whom the impe- 
rial dignity had in a manner become hereditary) continued zealous- 
ly Catholic, and by uniting the principles of intoleranc e, with. 
the practice of oppression, compelled the Protestants, not only of 
its own dominions, but throughout Europe, to combine in leagues 
for the mutual support of each other." Now, if these sentences 
do not miply that Catholic principles are those of "intolerance," 
Mr. Adams ought to have been sent to grammar school, instead of 
setting up, at Cambridge, as a teacher of style some few years af- 
ter. But he wrote, on this occasion, too clearly for himself and 
his friends, as appears from our quotation from letter 41st, where 
he spoke of Hhe Catholic doctrine of bringing back all stragglers 
from the Church by compulsion.'''' 

To deprive our adversaries of the very shadow of a defence, we 
now insert an extract from letter 3d, lest they seize upon it to give 
some colour to their charge of "mutilation." — It is proper to re- 
3 



18 

mark, however, that it was no part of our intention to wound the 
feelino-s of those who differ from us, which explains the original 
omission-, and we joyfully improve the occasion to remark, that 
while a prudent regard to our own reputation induces us to set 
forth the text of Mr. Mamsy he has in his own person, afforded 
the only illustration of it, we have had the misfortune to encoun- 
ter, in our own country. ''•IVie Catholics hate the Protestants the 
more for their having notv the secure and unlimited liberty in their 
worship; and the Protestants envy the Catholics the privileges they 
still retain, which the Prussian government has bound itself to 
preserve." 

But these extracts and those which follow in our address, touch- 
ing the unfair apportionment of the Churches of Breslau, the 
''trumpery of the Catholic religious orders, and '■'■the dominion oj 
the Catholic cle^^gy over the souls, bodies and estates of men,'''' are 
passed over by our opponents with heedful disregard. We agree 
with them that it were indeed "absurd" to attempt "a detailed vin- 
dication." They know that they manifest too clearly the 
feelings and sentiments of Mr. Adams. They know too that 
we gave their complete sense, and the general, but unsupported 
charge of their being "broken and dislocated," will not avail as an 
excuse for their evasion. When men of character stake their re- 
putations against others, a reflecting community looks hr facts and 
not assertions. '■^Broken'''' when applied in this manner, implies with 
writers of intelligence, a destruction of the author'' s 'idea — '■'■dislo- 
cated'''' signifies that forc'ible separation of a passage from the con- 
text ivhicJi presents a meaning different from what he intended. — 
When either course can be proven upon us, we shall candidly con- 
fess we have been mistaken in the writings of Mr. Adams; but it 
must first be revealed to us, by some higher authority than that of 
our opponents; that Mr. Adams was altogether ignorant of the 
language in which he wrote, that he knew not the most familiar 
rules of the art which he subsequently essayed to teach, and that 
his heart meanwhile was overflowing with the milk of Christain 
tofei^ance for Catholics, instead of controversial gall. 

After the citation of the Jansemsl Pascal, as "a Catholic and a 
Priest,'' we have a right, in all courtesy, to demand some better 
evidence than mere assertion, for the account by our opponents of the 
manner in which a report by Mr. Adams "the gentleman now at the 
head of the American government," came to be "on record" in a 
British house of Parliament, and operate against the claims of our 
oppressed Irish brethren. British statesmen and officers of the 
crown, though not always more liberal on certain points than our 
President, are generally good scholars, and somewhat better ac- 
quainted with their mother tongue, than his vindicators would have 
usconsiderthe author of oiu- "broken and mutilated" extracts. But 
if what they say on this point be true, it proves no less, that the book 
ivhlch '■'•welh'^tsher''- untruly said, we d'ul '■'■not build much on,^'' teas 



J9 

at least considered a foundalion for continued oppressions of tiie 
Irish, by the British ministry. 

We are only surprised that our adversaries went no furtlier — 
that they did not reprobate the Catholics for rejecting the offers of 
"the Solicitor General" and cite with him, the "Silesian letters" to 
balance the protest of the hish Bishops and their clergy. 

Before we dismiss them, however, we venture two questions. — 
When Mr. Adams said in letter 3d, Speaking of reserved cases, "I 
expected to have found some heinous crimes upon the list, but, 
unless the murder of a jmest may be considered as of that denom^ 
ination, there was not one;" do his advocates understand him to 
express a serious doubt of the heinous guilt of murdering any man.? 
or do they think that the circumstance of the murdered person's 
being a priest constituted Mr. Adams's ground for speaking dubious- 
ly of the criminality of the murderer.? or do they believe, with ms, 
that he meant no more than a sportive expression of contempt for 
the Catholic priesthood, "addressed in the unreservedness of fra- 
ternal confidence to a brother.?" Again, Avhen he charged (in let- 
ter 4 -id) the Catholic clergy of Silesia with too much indolence 
for the increased labour of instruction, and with dread for the sta- 
bility of their Church '■from the dispersion of intellectual light,'''' 
when he emphatically added, ^'■they considered alike the spirit of 
innovation and the spirit of enquiry as their natural enemies" — 
What do our opponents understand him to mean.? 

From the clumsy tissue of anti-Catholic scurrility and misrepre- 
sentation, interwoven with the heavy fabric of the "Silesian" cor- 
respondence, which was spread before the American people, like 
a family banner, to remind them of the absent heir, we turn again 
to those drowsy lullabies for the Cambridge youth, of other times 
"the Lectures on Rhetoric." And here it again becomes our pain- 
ful duty to animadvert upon the course of those who have under- 
taken to answer us. If their rule be right that the whole of a pas- 
sage cited should be given to the reader, whether it relates to the 
subject before him or no; how much more should all be quoted 
which is essentially connected tvith it! Why then did they, 
in citing from the Lectures, omit the following paragraph which 
is separated, by only four lines, from what they are pleased 
to represent as "a compliment to the usefulness of the Catholic 
Church.?" "At one time the pulpit has been made the vehicle of 
unintelligil)le mysticism; at another of unfathomable metaphysics; 
at a third of fanatical inflammation. It has been the instrument 
of the worst abuses of the Romish Church, and the most effectual 
weapon of the Reformation. Athanasius, Peter the Hermit, Wicliffe, 
Huss, Luther and Calvin, successively and sucessfidly employed 
this mighty engine for the propagation of error and of '^I'rutli." (vol. 
1. page 323.) Truly our respondents give us credit for patience! 
Are there not here two subjects in immediate opposition, "the 
abuses of the Romish Church'''' and the reformation-'''' — and when 



20 

the author speaks, in the next sentence of error and truth, can 
we believe him to apply them indiscriminately to the ^'■Muses'''' 
and the '•'■Reform V^ Will then any candid man deny that '■'■propa- 
gation of error'''' was ascribed to those who upheld what are cal- 
led "the abuses?" It cannot be! 

We are next compelled to republish six entire pages in order to 
place the rash accusation of "-misrepresentation" in its proper light. 
We adhere to the rule we adopted with the Fourth of July Ad- 
dress in relation to the phrases originally omitted and supplied, in 
"the Address," by asterisks; — and we ask an attentive comparison 
of that pamphlet with this. 

["It has long been remarked, that there is a striking difference 
between the eloquence of the pulpit, as it has appeared in the 
compositions of the French and of the English divines.] A French 
sermon is a poj)ular discourse, addressed almost exclusively to the 
feelings of the auditory; [clothed in a most gorgeous attire of rhe- 
toric, and calculated only to make an impression upon the heart.] 
An Engl'ish sermon is, or rather was until of late year's, a cold, unim- 
passioned appUcat'wn to the understanding; [abounding with so- 
lid reason and logical argument, but seldom attempting to warm 
or interest the passions of the hearers. The practice appears in 
both instances to have preceded the theory, but the French sys- 
tem first found an able advocate in the celebrated Fenelon, arch- 
bishop of Cambray; and the modern English writers upon rhetoric, 
without duly considering] the princ'ipal cause of the difference, 
[have adopted his ideas, and yielded perhaps too readily the palm 
of victory to the French doctrine. 

"The cause to which 1 allude, and which I apprehend contri- 
buted much more to influence the character and composition of 
English sermons, and to mark their difference from those of the 
French, than the mere diversity of national character, to which it 
has generally been ascribed,] is no other than the Protestant re- 
formation. In France and in other Roman Catholic countries, 
[where every point of doctrine was an article of faith,] the exclu- 
sion of reasoning from the desk is just and consistent. The chris- 
tian is not allowed to be a reasoner; he is only a believer. [His 
religious opinions are given him, not for examination and scruti- 
ny, but for implicit and unhesitating assent.] The sacred sci-ip- 
tures themselves are held to be mysteries above his understanding, 
[and his creed is never submitted to the decision of his judgment. 
The French doctrine of pulpit oratory is a natural consequence 
from the doctrine of an infallible church, and inseparably connect- 
ed with it.] Under such a church, there can be no occasion for 
argumentative sei'mons; and reasoning is very naturally expelled, 
from the pulpits. [But the Protestant churches profess to make 
the reason of every individual the umpire of his faith. They admit 
no infallible rule of faith, other than the scriptures. The assidu- 
ous perusal of tiiese they not only pcrnut, but enjoin upon all then- 



21 

followers; and abandon their construction and exposition to his 
own judgment. The explanation and elucidation of the scrip- 
tures thus become one of the most arduous and important duties 
of the Protestant preacher; a duty, which he can discharge only 
by enlightening the understandings of his people. 

"In order to test the correctness of this French system of sermon- 
izing, and to show that it is adapted only to the practice of an 
infallible church, let us attend only to those classes of subjects for 
the disquisitions of the pulpit, which are among the most suitable 
for a Protestant divine, but which become useless and improper, 
where they are prescribed, as undeniable articles of faith. 

"If the end of the preacher's discourse is the happiness of his 
hearers both in this and the future life, by means of their improve- 
ment in knowledge and virtue, that portion of the duty, which con- 
sists in the communication of knowledge, must of necessity be ad- 
dressed to the hearers' reason. The faith of the Protestant lay- 
man must often depend upon the degree of information, which he 
may receive from his religious instructor. The existence and at- 
tributes of the Deity, the nature and immortality of the soul, 
the doctrine of future rewards and punishments, the evidences 
of revealed religion, the peculiar character of its precepts, a com- 
parison of its system of morals with those of the Chinese, Indian, 
Persian, Egyptian, Greek, and Arabian legislators and philosophers, 
an internal comparison between the Mosaic and Christian dispensa- 
tions, or in other words between the principles of the law and 
those of the gospel, these are all themes, upon which the Protestant 
teacher may and ought freely to expatiate for the improvement of 
his hearers in knowledge. But they admit of no discussion, where 
the preacher himself and all his flock are compelled to believe 
whatever has been prescribed to them on these all important ques- 
tions, and have no further to look for their creed, than to the de- 
cisions of the church.] A Roman Catholic believes in the exis- 
tence of a God, in the immortality of his own soul, and in a future 
state of retribution, because the holy church has told him they are 
articles of faith. But he is not alloived to ask the reason why. Jl 
Protestant is told to believe these fuy,dammtal points of religion, 
because upon examination he will find them as satisfactorily p^'ov- 
ed to his reason, [as he will discover them to be important to his 
happiness. Now the evidences of these primary principles are 
not obvious to every mind. They are liable to numerous and 
plausible objections. Not only the thoughtless and the profligate, 
but shallow reasoners and philosophical dogmatists dispute and 
deny them. The wolves of infidelity are prowling around every 
fold. Surely under such a state of things it is the duty of the 
pastor to guard his flock by every kind of security. It is as much 
his duty to detect the sophistical semblance of reason, as to repel 
the impetuous onset of the passions. 



5; ,1 



22 

"■TJiese three articies form the basis of what is called natural re- 
ligion; and the belief in them does not always imply that of Chris- 
tianity. This is barely a question of evidence, which in this, as 
in all other objects of controversy, is partly external and partly 
internal. When the truth of christian revelation is contested, it be- 
comes the minister of the gospel not only to be able to give a 
reason for the faith that is in him, but furnish those of his hearers, 
less qualified to search into the depths of such inquires, with a 
reason equally satisfactory to themselves. 

"When both these difficulties at the threshold of religious per- 
suasion have been removed, when the atheist and I he deist have 
both been silenced, and the firm belief in divine revelation is estab- 
lished, then] the volume of sacred inspiration is opened before the 
preacher^ and it is his duty to make it jjrofilable to his hearers 
for doctrine^ for reproof for correction^ for instruction in right- 
eousness. The field here opened to the Protestant divine is inex- 
haustible. To 'the Roman Catholic preacher it is never opened at 
all. For tvith ivhat propriety could he reason to his audience from 
a book xvhich they are not permitted to read? 

["In making these observations it is not my design either to pass 
a censure upon any prevailing system of Christianity, or to question 
the correctness of the French theory of pulpit eloquence, as adapt- 
ed to the church, where it originated; but to caution those of you, 
■who may hereafter assume the pastoral office, against the implicit 
adoption of the critical creed of tlie French school, which the re- 
cent English theorists have too much countenanced. A Protes- 
tant divine, who looks upon his pulpit merely as a chair for the 
delivery of moral lectures, or a stage to work upon the passions of 
his auditory, as at a theatrical representation, has a very inade- 
quate idea of his duties and of his powers. The earnest and ar- 
dent inculcation of moral duties is undoubtedly one of the essential 
obiig^ttions of the preacher; and in discharging it he is bound to 
lay iiold of every hope and every' fear, that can infiuence the heart 
of man. But to enlighten the mind is one of the most effi>ctual 
iiieuns of amending tlie heart; and] the societies of christians, v:ho 
place themselves undef the sninislratlon of a spiritual monitor, 
have a r}ij;l.t to expect, that he'should consider and treat them as 
rational, no less than as' sensitive beings.'''' (Vol. i. p. 332.) 
■ We now ask of those interested in this controversy to resume 
our "address,"^a)!d satisfy themselves, w-hethcr the extracts we gave 
in it are not to' be found, distiaclly and unequivocally expressed, 
in the unmutilated language of Mr. Adams. From our opponents 
we anticipate no contradiction. If it be their pleasure, here too, 
us in other instances, 1o jw.tifij wliat llioy c:innot deny that Mr. 
Adams has said — we cannot help it — we shall only intrcp.t of them, 
as we wish Mr. Adams to do, to "speak for Ihemselves." 

It was prudent generalship in our adversaries to array against 
US the sacred name of "Carrol" — but whv not counteract "the cf- 



23 

feet" sought by us, by denying that Mr. Adams stigmatised the 
Jesuits as systematic liars? — or why not rather, (as they side with 
the Jansensist Pascal against the Jesuits, and yet dare not disavow 
respect for their late Archbishop) deny at once that John Carrol 
was a thorough bred Jesuit — "«/i ante-diluvian^'^ — trained in those 
citadels of learning and piety which the tide of secular prejudice 
subsequently threw down? — we leave you to answer the questions. 

Again, did Mr. Adams charge us with idolatry in his "sprightly" 
contrast between the Heathen Mythology and the Roman Catholic 
doctrines? The silence of his advocates would imply their assent. 
No! this is but one of the countless passages that have been "cul- 
led" from books which few persons care to read entire. "Is it ne- 
cessary" then, as a Catholic doctor said of Justin Martyr, "to 
drink the whole sea before we can pronounce it salt?" and must 
we be drenched with all the vapid floods of Mr. Adams' pen, to 
know that, when he writes of us, it distils a bitter relish drawn 
from the very sluices of his heart? But we are asked, what all 
this virulence can operate against us, though infused into the 
minds of American youth? How can the lawgivers of America 
fetter us with legislative restraints, in contravention of the Con- 
stitution? We answer, is the constitution unchangeable? cannot 
the ordaining power model it anew? But, supposing it unchanged, 
are not Congress the arbiters of "naturalization," and might not, 
at some future day, a policy similar to that which., under this 
administration^ luould exclude every foreigner from the naval 
service., mercantile or military., as being unworthy of confidence^ 
exclude also from our political community^ as unu'orihy of trust, 
the myriads of Catholics who come to us from the fertile margins 
of the Rhine, from the icy cliffs of Switzerland, — the vineyards 
and olive grounds of Italy, — the sunny hills of France and Spain, 
and the green fields of Erin, "lured by the splendor of the western 
star?" 

What! say our opponents "the fountains of Justice poisoned 
too?" Aye, for we have read of courts, in the "partially emancipa- 
ted" British nation, where "the defendant's witnesses being papists, 
were supposed to have received absolution to swear to any thing," 
and the prisoner was accordingly convicted.* And woe betide the 
Catholic witness judged by the standard of Mr. Adams! — 

But, say the respondents, are the Catholics to be "written down 
too?" Why no — unless the scholars write better than their master 
and with the like good will. 

At least Mr. Adams would not withhold from Catholics "the en- 
dearing charities." Perhaps not-, occupying a prominent position, 
in a community abounding with respectable and influential Catho- 
lics, he does not., we believe, enquire the religion of beggars at his 
door; and he does buy things he dont want, at fashionable Catholic 
fairs ! ! 

*See in a volume of cases filed with our vouchers, the trial of Eleanoi 
Marchand, at the old Bailey in 1700 — (page 4').) 



24 

To conclude — we asserted, in reference to the Panama mission, 
that "he could not conduct a diplomatic correspondence" touch- 
ing a national right most precious to our protestant fellow citizens^ 
without indulging a most offensive and imprudent "intemperance of 
expression" — and we say so still. 

The very passage cited by our opponents, the only one they 
dared adduce, sustains our accusation-, unless, by the etiquette oi 
modern diplomacy, to charge a sovereign state with being influenc- 
ed by "prejudices" be the road to favour. But let us look at the 
letter to Mr. Anderson and the message to the Senate. 

We referred in the address to the former only of these. The 
expressions in the latter were severely chastised in the legislative 
body to which it was transmitted; which furnished the hint for tlie 
softened tone of the subsequent message to the House of Repre- 
sentatives, to which our opponents refer as showing "the full ex- 
tent of that 'intemperance' which has drawn upon Mr. Adams this 
violent rebuke." It will be remembered that we drew a broad 
line between the object desired by Mr. Adams, and the manner 
in which he sought to attain it. As regards the foriner we entire- 
ly concur with him; but the latter, which resulted, we think, from 
the general temper of his religious opinions, was indiscreet and 
unstatesmanlike. We will illustrate this position. Suppose one 
of our friends who support Mr. Adams (and we have many such) 
had been disposed, in the spirit of that christian charity so earnest- 
ly recommended to us by the fifteen signers, to convince one of us 
that the statements in our address were unfounded in fact, and in- 
jurious to the President. Would he have commenced in this strain.^ 
"You are the slave of prejudice." "You are a political bigot." 
"You are influenced by an intolerant spirit." "Your party seldom 
listen to reason or justice." We conceive not, were he disposed 
only to maintain a courteous intercourse, much less if he wished to 
conciliate favour. Yet this was precisely the course of Mr. Adams 
towards the southern republics. Even if all he said were true, 
that did not render its expression decorous or prudent. Hear him- 
self in his message to the Senate, of Dec. 26th, 1825. 

"Some of the southern nations are, even yet, so far under the do- 
minion of prejudice, that they have incorporated with their politi- 
cal constitutions an exclusive church; without the toleration of any 
other than the dominant sect. The abandonment of this last 
bads:e of religious bigotry and oppression may be pressed more 
effectually, by the united exertions of those who concur in the 
principles of freedom of conscience, upon those ivlio are yet to be 
convinced of their justice and wisdom, than by the solitary eflbrts 
of a minister, &c." 

So in his letter to Mr. Anderson, May 27th, 1823. 

"Among the usual objects of negociation, in treaties of com- 
merce and navigation, are the liberty of conscience and religious 
worship. Articles to this effect have been seldom admiHed in Ro- 



25 

man Catholic countries and are even interdicted by the present 
constitution of Spain: The South American Republics have been 
too much under the influence of the same intolerant spirit, (^c." 

The interests of diplomacy would, we think, have suffered lit- 
tle, had these haughty sentences been exchanged for a simple de- 
mand of reciprocal privileges in regard to social ivorship, for the 
Catholic and Protestant subjects of each contracting party. 

We come now to the most carious portion of the replies. Its 
authors must consider it a powerful argument, for they have brought 
it forward not less than three times. Mr. Adams gives offices to 
Catholics! therefore, he never wrote against them, or writing against 
them he did not express his sentiments. This may be good lo^ic 
with the present administration and its supporters; for it conclu- 
sively proves that the President and Secretary of State, never wrote 
against, or wrote their sentiments of each other, till their friendly 
reciprocation of good offices in 1825. To us, however, it appears 
the very aggravation of injury and insult. What! are Catholics to 
be spurned like hungry dogs and then appeased with a bone? 

We have read of a wealthy Roman who amused himself by buf- 
feting the passengers in the street, and instantly tendering the fine 
which unfortunately was limited by law. We trust that principle 
will never be tolerated by the Catholics of America, though some of 
their brethren bid them "be quiet — we should suffer worse in En- 
gland and not get the offices either P'' This unworthy argument, 
however, must, like the greater portion of the replies, be ascribed 
to an involuntary or intentional oversight of the true points in is- 
sue. The controversy is not whether Mr. Adams will give offices to 
Catholics, but whether Catholics will give office to him; and this 
we contend they will not do, "through favour to Catholics, however 
estimable," even though he has made a few appointments from amono- 
old established officers of the State Department, and the families of his 
political supporters; — though he did give letters of introduction to 
six young Catholic gentlemen, students of divinity!!! though he 
goes to Catholic fairs, where fashion compels him to go, and buys 
trinkets there in aid of one of the most popular charities in the 
COUNTRY. Neither will Catholics be intimidated by the threats of 
"well wisher," nor the appeals to Protestant prejudice wrung from 
the agony of his Catholic apologists. We have not attacked our 
Protestant brethren, and should disdain to invoke sectarian feeling 
in behalf of ourselves or our friends. 

William Jenkins, Philip Laurenson, 

Edward I. Willson, T. Parkin Scott, 

William George Read, John Creagh. 

P. S. A copy of the Fourth of July Address — of the "Silesian Letters" 

of the "Lectures on Rhetorir," and the "Panama" Correspondence, &c. may 
be consulted at the JACKSON READING ROOM. Water street. 



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